In writing spaceframes for Star Trek Adventures using the roster of ships from Star Trek Online, I’ve started to tackle advanced spaceframes from the 25th century. These starships include some advanced armaments and technological advances that are just plain better than those of the Next Generation era. Rather than tie up those advancements in valuable Starship Talents, these are the changes I recommend for spaceframes designed after 2400.
Systems and Departments
Spaceframes from the 25th century feature have the same Department modifiers as those of any other era: a total of +1 spread over the six ship Departments. Their Systems are more robust, though, and have a total of 62 points and a maximum rating of 13. This is true of older spaceframes refit to operate in the Star Trek Online era as well as new designs.
Quantum Torpedoes
Starting in 2370, Starfleet ships began to be outfitted with powerful quantum torpedoes. In the Command Division Supplement we saw some changes to default armaments to reflect play in the less-advanced 22nd century (during Star Trek: Enterprise). In the 25th century of Star Trek Online, phasers remain the default energy weapons but quantum torpedoes are the default torpedo weapon. Any ship in service after the year 2400 using a spaceframe from the previous era replaces photon torpedoes with quantum torpedoes and in the 25th century quantum torpedoes no longer require Calibration. If a spaceframe comes with Quantum Torpedoes by default, it gains another Starship Talent of the crew’s choice.
There are many other types of torpedoes, of course, and your players may want to include those in your Star Trek Adventures campaign as well. To add these to your starship, use the following catch-all Ship Talent. Note that because this is a single Talent it’s not possible for a ship to have two different kinds of advanced torpedoes.
Advanced Torpedo Launcher
Requirement: 2400 or laterStarships with this Talent are equipped with advanced torpedoes. Choose one of the latest ship-to-ship armaments that Starfleet has developed: plasma, transphasic, chroniton, or tricobalt torpedoes. The ship has this type of torpedo in addition to any other form of torpedo it carries.
New Shield Options
In Star Trek Online, shield arrays come in four different varieties. Shield Arrays are the standard compliment of any starship and represent shields as written in the core rulebook. Covariant Shield Arrays increase maximum shield capacity so are equivalent to the Advanced Shields Talent (one can assume that the “covariant modulator” is the gizmo that achieves advanced shielding. Regenerative Shield Arrays recover faster than normal shields and so are represented by the Improved Shield Recharge Talent (with the same reasoning as above).
The only type of shielding that needs special attention is the Resilient Shield Array which is better at preventing bleedthrough damage to the ship’s hull from attacks that hit the shields. To add these to Star Trek Adventures, use the following Ship Talent.
Resilient Shielding
Requirement: 2400 or later.
The vessel has been equipped with redundant systems in its shield array to prevent damage bleeding through from attacks which impact its shields. Whenever the ship has at least one point of Shields and suffers one or more Breaches, roll a Challenge Dice. If an Effect is rolled, the first Breach suffered by the ship is ignored.
Emergency Medical Hologram
By the year 2400, EMHs are standard on Federation ships. In fact, holoemmiters can be found throughout the ship to accommodate photonic crew members. All starships have an Emergency Medical Hologram in their sickbay as if they had the Talent of the same name (found in the core rulebook). On the other hand, the EMH Mark II (found in the Sciences Division Supplement on page 127) is not standard and still requires a Talent to use.
In general, though, it’s simple to call up personnel to assist you aboard the ship if you just need an extra set of hands. Every working area of the ship features holoemitters and templates for holographic personnel are stored for the use of the ship’s physical crew. When characters are in need of a team of personnel (as described on page 185 of the core rulebook) there is no cost for the first team they receive. These will be holograms with enough knowledge to function as an Advantage to the characters; they will not even be as interactive as an EMH, just extra help. Photonic personnel cannot leave the ship, however, so physical personnel are still required for away missions. After a personnel team is summoned, additional teams in the same scene or scenes happening at the same time cost their normal amount (in Opportunity or Escalation).